Girl's Doctor at UCSF Won't Be Charged / He allegedly gave dying 9-year-old a lethal injection

Edward Epstein, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, May 27, 1995

A doctor who allegedly gave a lethal injection to a dying child at the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center last fall will not be prosecuted, District Attorney Arlo Smith said yesterday.

In a statement issued by his office, Smith said an investigation determined that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the unidentified doctor in the death of the 9-year-old girl.

When the child's condition worsened after she underwent surgery at a UCSF hospital, her mother and her physician decided to cut off life-support systems.

However, the girl lived. The doctor admitted that in addition to pain killers, he administered an unspecified dosage of potassium chloride, a drug used during heart surgery to help stop the heart, said assistant district attorney Eugene Sweeters.

The names of everyone involved in the case have been withheld because of the confidentiality of patient and hospital employee records.

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The doctor and three nurses were suspended by UCSF, and the doctor's case was forwarded to Smith's office for criminal investigation. Assisting in the death of a terminally ill patient is a felony in California. The district attorney asked the country medical examiner to investigate.

The medical examiner, Dr. Boyd Stephens, would not comment yesterday, although a spokesman said he will issue a statement next week.

But Sweeters said Stephens told the district attorney's office after examining the doctor's records that he could not determine the girl's cause of death. The medical records did not show that the girl had been given potassium chloride.

Stephens did not have the girl's body exhumed because potassium chloride occurs naturally, and an autopsy without complete medical records would not help determine the cause of death, Sweeters said.

Sweeters said the doctor admitted to a physician review panel that he administered potassium chloride, but the prosecutor said such an admission to a private administrative body cannot be used to make a criminal case.

"We agonized over this decision for a long time," Sweeters said. "I don't know if the doctor is right or wrong. But for a criminal prosecution, we need evidence.

"The doctor faced a problem for which there was no solution."

UCSF suspended the doctor for 90 days. Three nurses who reported him were suspended for six weeks without pay. The hospital did not say why the nurses were suspended, but a UCSF spokeswoman said yesterday that one nurse has resigned her job and the other two are appealing their suspensions. The doctor is back at work.